International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims

Description

The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, IRCT, is a global network of civil society organisations and independent experts that support survivors of torture.

Member centres provide medical, psychological, legal and social rehabilitation to help survivors heal and rebuild their lives. IRCT also produces forensic evidence, publishes academic research and advocates for justice for torture victims. It is the world’s largest membership based organisation specialising in the treatment and documentation of torture, with member centres in dozens of countries staffed by thousands of professionals including doctors, psychologists, lawyers, social workers and physiotherapists.

IRCT grew out of work begun in Denmark in 1974, when a group of doctors examined torture survivors newly arrived as refugees. The Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims was founded in Copenhagen in 1982, and IRCT itself was founded in 1985 as an international membership organisation. It publishes the Torture Journal, a peer reviewed academic source on torture rehabilitation and prevention, and runs the Independent Forensic Expert Group, which investigates and documents torture and ill-treatment.

IRCT is based in Copenhagen, with an additional office in Brussels. Each year it supports tens of thousands of torture survivors and carries out thousands of advocacy interventions, including at the United Nations in Geneva and before regional and national courts, to press for justice and reparations and to push states to end torture.